


you'll be the end of me

by modernpatroclus



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Panic Attacks, Torture, bc i am a Sucker™
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 06:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6742996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernpatroclus/pseuds/modernpatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things have finally started to settle near the end of the summer of painful court trials and Neil's physical recovery. When Andrew gets sick, he actually listens to Neil when he tells him to stay home and sleep while Neil and Kevin practice.<br/>He should've known better than to listen to the murder magnet's advice about danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you'll be the end of me

**Author's Note:**

> Have a thing I finally finished after like 3 months.  
> The title is from "End of Me" by A Day To Remember.

 

Andrew stayed in the dorm while Neil practiced that night. It was the first and only time that Andrew didn’t accompany Neil and Kevin to their extra nighttime practices. It will haunt him for the rest of his life.

He’d been sick the past few days, and Neil – insufferably caring bastard that he is – insisted that Andrew sleep this one out. _“You’re just gonna sit and watch; it’s not like anything interesting will happen. Get better so we can make out again.”_

Andrew knew better than to listen to Neil. The man is the biggest murder magnet he’s ever met (and Andrew’s met a lot of sketchy people). Something interesting _always_ happens when he’s not around.

So it’s because of Neil’s insistence that Andrew is in bed asleep when he gets the call.

He reaches for his phone in the dark and sees Neil’s name. He’s going to be pissed if this is something stupid, but he _wants_ it to be something stupid, because Andrew’s _not_ stupid – he knows that it’s probably something serious.

He answers, already getting out of bed and pulling on clothes, when the noise on the other end makes him freeze.

Struggling, a strange laugh, Neil screaming.

Andrew mutes his end immediately, not wanting to alert whoever it is to the help.

“They’ll find you in the morning. Look at you, covered in scars. Pathetic. No one will miss you,” the man snarls.

Despite the clear torture he’s enduring, Neil gasps out a “Go to hell,” through clenched teeth that has Andrew wanting to tell him to shut his damn mouth and _stay alive_ while he gets there.

Andrew guns it to the stadium, but slams on the gas and nearly misses his turn in pure terror at the scream Neil lets out. He whips into the parking lot and is inside the court at a speed that could rival Neil’s.

Andrew gives himself three seconds to take in the scene in front of him before he tears the man to shreds.

Kevin, unconscious at half-court. Then, a few feet away, Neil, pinned to the ground underneath a figure clad in black.

It’s a man, and he’s wielding a knife that’s pressed to Neil’s abdomen, where his shirt has been cut open. They’re facing away from him, so the man doesn’t notice Andrew until it’s too late. Andrew’s vision is red with the need to kill this man slowly, to hurt him worse than he’s hurting Neil.

But Neil is nearly unconscious in a pool of far too much of his own blood, so as soon as the man is within reach, back still obliviously turned, Andrew snaps the man’s neck in one fluid motion.

Then he turns to Neil, whose blue eyes are fighting to stay open but clearly losing, from the glazed, dull look in them.

“Andrew,” Neil gasps, eyes rolling back in his head. He tries to reach for Andrew, but his hand clutches at air before falling uselessly to the court floor.

Andrew has felt pure terror only a few times in his life, and Neil had already used up his allotted turn when he let himself get kidnapped to Baltimore. Why either of them could even pretend to believe that nothing would happen in a few short hours apart was outright stupidity.

“Do not fucking fall asleep,” Andrew threatens, already searching for a safe place to hold Neil and carry him. He’d already done the math; it would be quicker for him to drive Neil than to wait for an ambulance, and for them to get him loaded into it on a gurney. With Andrew’s reckless speeds it was almost laughable to consider calling 911.

As soon as the doctors are hauling Neil into the ER, Andrew’s dialing Wymack.

“Dammit, Minyard, if you don’t have a good reason for calling me at 3 in the morning –” he starts.

Andrew doesn’t have the patience for this tonight. “It’s Neil.” That immediately shuts him up.

“What happened?” Shuffling. He’s already moving out the door.

“He was attacked at the stadium. So was Kevin; he’s still there.”

“Wait, so where are you?” He hears Wymack’s engine roar to life in the background.

“At the hospital.” _Obviously._

“I’ll be there with Kevin in 15 minutes.”

* * *

 _How_ Andrew could’ve been so naïve eats at him all night in the waiting room, every second that he stares at Neil’s sleeping face in a hospital room.

 _I am never leaving him alone again,_ Andrew thinks, because it is the only thing stopping him from wringing Neil’s neck himself.

 _“It’s not like anything interesting will happen,”_ plays in his head like a broken record, and if Andrew were anyone else, Andrew would scream. But because Andrew is Andrew, he sits in silence and berates himself.

_I am never leaving him alone again._

* * *

“What the fuck happened?”

“It was one of my father’s ex-goons. Said I ruined his life with the whole Baltimore thing.” Neil shrugs, feigning detachment, like none of this affects him anymore than the other shit he’s endured. Andrew is not impressed.

“You’re an idiot,” he says, pinning Neil with a bored stare.

“What did I do?” Neil asks.

“Going without me. Pretending to be fine. Take your pick.”

Neil has the decency to look guilty then, and Andrew hates it. _He’s_ the one in the hospital. He shouldn’t feel guilty; he should feel _pain_.

“That is why you’re an idiot, Josten. The whole, ‘I’m going to worry about everyone else while I’m fucking tortured,’ dance. Your empathy is appalling.”

Neil smiles then, small but _there,_ and it’s the most real expression Andrew has seen on his face since he found Neil last night – since he was screaming in pain.

It fills Andrew with relief; _he_ was supposed to be the emotionless one in this relationship, not Neil. Andrew’s always hated his ‘I’m fine’ act.

“You’re a fucking piece of work. You can’t go a week without some sort of near-death experience.”

Neil laughs this time, breathless and disbelieving. “I’m working on it.”

Andrew narrows his eyes. “250%.”

They don’t say anything after that, content to just lay together in the tiny, uncomfortable hospital bed until the rest of the team inevitably come back during visiting hours. (It’d been almost amusing watching Wymack fight the nurse on letting Andrew stay the night the day before. As if the nurse would’ve been able to stop him.)

* * *

Neil is forced to stay in the hospital for five more days after he wakes, the longest he’s been consciously detained to a hospital bed, and Andrew enjoys Neil’s constant attempts to persuade the nurses to let him out of bed. He’s allowed short trips around the hallway after the first couple days, but until he’s released they mostly make him stay in bed.

Neil’s going crazy with the need to play Exy, to go somewhere, to _do something_. Andrew finds it much more entertaining than the hours spent with the other Foxes.

It’s Neil’s last full day in the hospital, and Andrew has just gotten there after his weekly session with Bee. The rest of the team are in practice, so Neil has been alone since Andrew left that morning.

When Andrew walks in the room, Neil is asleep. It takes about two seconds of Neil thrashing around for Andrew to realize that he’s having a nightmare.

Andrew crosses the room and goes to wake Neil when he starts talking. “Don’t leave, don’t leave,” he whimpers.

Andrew freezes for a moment, a horrible wave of guilt washing over him. He only lets himself wallow – if that’s even what it could be called, coming from him – in the feeling for as long as it takes to rouse Neil.

“Andrew,” Neil gasps when he opens his eyes, and it brings Andrew painfully back to when he’d found Neil. He squeezes his own eyes shut and clenches his fist hard enough for his nails to bite into his palm for a few seconds, letting the sensation ground him.

“Hey,” Neil whispers. Andrew opens his eyes and sees Neil’s hand hovering a breath away from his face, a silent question in his eyes.

“Yes,” Andrew whispers, because it’s all he can manage right now.

Neil cups Andrew’s jaw with one hand and gently guides him to a sitting position on the edge of the bed with the other.

“It’s over, Andrew,” he whispers, blue eyes piercing into his. Andrew wants to punch him, because _there’s that damn empathy again_.

“You were having a nightmare,” he says, and Neil flinches but doesn’t look away. Because it needs to be said, no matter how much they both want to ignore it all.

“You were there this time, at practice. But you left,” he says, looking down at their joined scarred hands.

“I wanted to be there,” Andrew snaps, because he _did_. Neil was the idiot who suggested he stay.

Andrew was the idiot who listened.

_I should have been there, I should have known something like this was coming._

He doesn’t realize he’s shaking, or that his eyes are closed, or that he’s letting out audible, gasping breaths, until Neil’s voice cuts through the panicked buzz his thoughts have become.

“Andrew, I know. It’s not your fault. Breathe, I’m here. I’m alive.”

Andrew doesn’t know how much time passes before he can finally properly breathe again. He doesn’t look up as he says, “This time.”

“What –” Neil starts to ask, but Andrew looks up and cuts him with a fierce look.

“You’re alive _this time_. But how many more of them are still out there? What happens when I graduate, Neil?”

Neil opens his mouth to reply, then closes it. They stare at each other in silence for a full five minutes before Neil sighs and says, “Andrew, I know you’re scared.”

“I do not get fucking scared, Josten,” he interrupts with a growl.

Neil rolls his eyes but otherwise continues like he hadn’t spoken. “But I’m pretty sure that was a one-off thing. The rest of them are either in jail or too cowardly to come after me with the Moriyamas protecting me.”

Andrew snorts then, coming back to himself a fraction. “’Protecting’ is a generous word.”

Neil smiles. “Protecting their investment,” he clarifies.

Andrew scowls but doesn’t say anything. He’s still not reassured. Neil attracts the worst kind of people – himself included, he acknowledges – and the FBI didn’t put all of Nathan’s loyal followers away. Clearly.

Andrew will be gone in a couple years, and he has no plans for what he’ll do after he graduates. Neil will play Exy professionally, but Andrew? He doesn’t care enough to plan his future. The only aspect of it that he cares about is Neil.

Their deal has been broken for months, but Andrew still can’t make himself stop caring. He hates himself for it almost as much as he hates Neil.

He tells Neil as much, and Neil grins. “You need to look up the word ‘hate’ in the dictionary.”

“Shut up.”

Neil arches his chest up into him and whispers, “Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Andrew replies, already leaning down into Neil.

They kiss until Andrew forgets what exactly he was worried about, and damn Neil for being such a good kisser. Judging by the smirk Andrew feels against his lips, Neil knows it.

“Fuck you, Josten,” he breathes.

“You’re welcome,” Neil says. He can hear the smirk, too.

“I hope you realized you’re not going anywhere alone with Kevin again.”

Neil laughs, the vibrations against him making Andrew shiver.

“263%.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you thought with a comment!


End file.
